Earthquake Baby by Amy Andrews

Author:Amy Andrews
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781460377864
Publisher: Harlequin

CHAPTER EIGHT

JACK’S expression was closed as he opened the door for Laura and she put on her seat belt. She watched in the rearview mirror as Jack stowed the blanket and medical bag away and slammed the boot down hard. The tyres spun on the loose gravel as he accelerated away from the kerb.

The silence in the car was awkward now. Laura felt uncomfortable. She stole glances at Jack’s forbidding profile, increasing her anxiety. She cast around for something to say to end the charged silence.

‘I can’t.’ There. He had said it.

‘Can’t what?’ she asked, her relief that he was still talking to her taking precedence over his cryptic comment.

‘I’m infertile.’

What? No you’re not, she almost blurted out. What on earth was he talking about? She lived with the proof of his fertility. A nine-year-old called Isaac.

Her silence was killing him. He had obviously shocked her. But he couldn’t let her carry on thinking he didn’t like children. He couldn’t believe she had ever thought that in the first place. OK, he’d told her that he had other priorities that didn’t involve family life, but it was quite a leap to assume that he disliked children.

He’d been stewing on her comments since she’d uttered them. He had to set the record straight, correct her wild assumptions. Even if it meant talking about stuff that very few people knew about.

‘Cat got your tongue?’ he jibed, none too gently. Why didn’t she say something? Anything?

‘But how…? I mean, I don’t understand.’

‘I got mumps shortly after I married Anna.’

‘Oh.’

Realisation dawned. The mumps had made him infertile. A not uncommon side-effect of the infection in adult men.

‘Yes. Oh.’

Laura started to become aware of the wider implications of his startling admission. He was infertile. He’d conceived Isaac before his bout of the mumps. So Isaac was the only child he would ever have. Ever.

Poor Jack. What a dreadful blow it must have been. Newly married and faced suddenly with most couples’ worst nightmare. Not being able to have children.

‘How was Anna about that?’

He laughed harshly. ‘It broke our marriage up…eventually.’

‘I’m so sorry, Jack.’ She wanted to touch him. Give him some comfort.

‘Don’t be. It was a long time ago.’ He turned and smiled a sad smile.

‘Want to talk about it?’

‘Going to play amateur psychiatrist?’ He laughed.

‘No, just good friend. Someone who knows a little about how life can hurt you.’

His laughter quietened and his mood became sombre again. He searched for the right place to begin.

‘Funnily enough,’ he said, his voice slightly husky, ‘we had a ten-year plan when we first got married, and it didn’t involve children. We both had our careers to concentrate on, you know?’

Laura nodded. ‘Then, after we’d been married for six months, I got mumps. The minute my infertility was confirmed, having a baby was all we could focus on. Suddenly it was the most important thing in our lives.’

‘Well, that’s only natural,’ Laura said, encouraging him to continue.

‘We tried everything. Nothing worked. We were basically on the IVF treadmill our entire married life.

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